"He's right," Aya said gently.
"You really want this?" the witch asked him.
"I don't want it, but I have to do it. I know you want to spare me, but you can't. We've run out of time."
Gabby turned back to the grimoire and ran her fingers across the page she'd been reading. "Okay," she said meekly. "Okay."
"I'll call Nye and the Three," Zac said. "We need to get ready…and I need to wash my face." He gestured to the blood from his fight with Aed.
Gabby nodded like she wasn't able to do anything else.
"And I'll stay and help you with the spell," Aya said. "I can't offer anything other than my presence without corrupting Alex."
"I know."
Zac stood to leave and Aya grabbed his hand. "Be careful. No more fighting Aed on your own."
"Believe me, I don't plan on it." He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers and a moment later he was gone.
"I'm at your service," Tristan said with a grin. He'd been silent the entire time and Alex got that he was the reserved kind, but he'd been a knight so honor and valor and all of that was his game.
"It's up to Gabby," Aya said to the knight. "It's time to follow her lead."
"We need to find a quiet spot where no one will hear or see us," the witch said, opening Isobel's laptop. "Somewhere where I can be close to the earth and that's free of distractions."
"Outside of town," Aya said. "A forest or a field…"
"There's a wood at the south end of town," Gabby said, pointing to the map she'd looked up on the laptop.
"Good," Aya declared. "Private enough for what we need to do."
"This is gonna hurt, isn't it?" Alex asked with a grimace.
"I don't know what it was like for the Romans," Aya said with a shrug. "Turning on a good day isn't pleasant, so I would assume yes. It's going to hurt." Alex started to pale and she placed a hand on his arm. "You'll be fine."
Tristan leaned over Gabby's shoulder and looked at the map. "I can drive you there and keep an eye out for trouble."
"I think Aed will be otherwise occupied," Aya said with a wave of her hand.
"No chances," Gabby said, glancing at Alex. "We can't take the risk of someone interrupting or finding out what we're doing."
"What happens if the spell is interrupted?" Alex asked, a little panicked.
"No idea, but I don't really want to find out."
"That's not reassuring me, you know."
Gabby smiled thinly. "Give me five minutes to get some stuff."
Alex fidgeted in his chair, watching as she went through the kitchen drawers and pulled out a sharp looking knife. His stomach instantly squirmed. What the hell had he gotten himself into? She flipped it over and inspected the edge in the light and seemed satisfied. She wrapped it in a tea towel and placed it on top of the grimoire. Ducking down, she rifled through the cupboards and pulled out a green plastic bowl. Alex wondered what she needed it all for. They were making him a vampire, not a salad.
"Okay," Gabby said. "That should do it. Lets go if we're doing this."
Alex stood, a little light headed. Fuck, in t-minus an hour or so, he'd be a vampire. Just like that. Gabby would cast the same spell that had created the Romans and that would be it. He'd be un-killable, powerful, fast and all of the above times ten. He didn't even want to think about the rest, at least not until it was all over.
Courage, Alex, he thought to himself. Courage.
They drove out to the forest in silence, Alex's thoughts bouncing from Isobel back to what was about to happen to him. He didn't know which one he should be more worried about.
"Here's okay," Gabby said and a moment later Tristan pulled the car over to the side of the road and killed the engine.
They piled out onto the road, the woods stretching into darkness around them, the dull glow of the city to their backs. Alex huddled into his coat and tried not to feel sick. Gabby and Aya set off into the tree line and he followed because there was no going back now. The point of no return had been reached the moment Aed snatched Isobel and took off with her. Tristan sat on the hood of the car, watching as they disappeared into the forest. A moment later, the vampire and the road were out of sight.
"You said you needed blood?" Alex asked as they walked. "Who's? I didn't think we could use either of yours?"
"We can't use pure Coven or Celestine blood," Gabby explained. "I'm neither, so mine is good."
"Does that mean I'll be linked to you like Katrin was to the others?"
"No, not unless I will it and I wouldn't do that to you."
Alex wasn't sure if he should answer that and instead he asked, "But Katrin was a part of the Coven, how could she make the Romans?"
"She had power before she was made one of the Five," Gabby explained. "But it was so small it was negligible. For all intents and purposes, she was ninety nine point nine percent human. Uncorrupted enough to be turned into a witch."
"Katrin had power before?" Aya asked. "I never knew."
"The memory she showed me was of her mother forcing her to make her grimoire as a child."
Aya snorted. "I can imagine how that went."
They walked through the woods until they came across a clearing that seemed to be to Gabby's liking. It was large and open, but branches still hung over their heads, shielding them form the night sky.
"I need to cast a circle of flame," Gabby explained. "Alex, you need to stand in the middle."
Aya looked at the grass and the surrounding forest. "Let me dig a circle out for you." They hybrid disappeared and returned just as fast with a branch and began digging a haphazard trench. When she caught Alex frowning at her, she winked. "The last thing we need is a forest fire."
Gabby knelt, setting the bowl, knife and grimoire at her feet. She flipped through the pages until she settled on one that must be the spell she needed.
"It's ironic, you know," Alex said, watching Aya dig the shallow ditch around him. "I was the nerdy guy in school. Nobody gave me a second look."
"You turned out to be a handsome muscled gardener," Gabby said, looking up. "You were a hundred times better than the popular kids anyway. How many of them went on to do anything great?"
"How many of them turned out to be witches? Or immortal vampires..."
"It's no use dwelling on the past, Alex," Aya said, interrupting their little trip down memory lane. "It's gone and cannot be changed. The present and the future is all anyone has."
"I'm not sure what to say to that." He groaned and ran an unsteady hand over his face.
"Courage," the hybrid said. It was the same thing he'd told himself earlier.
Once Aya had completed her digging, she threw the branch aside and stood back to observe.
"Are you ready?" Gabby asked him.
"As I'll ever be."
Gabby stood and raised her hands. There was a sudden whoosh of hot air and the night lit up with an orange glow. Alex looked around, eyes wide with awe as a circle of flame sprung to life in Aya's haphazard ditch, encircling the three of them. He'd never seen Gabby practice before, not like this and it was something else. How could he describe the indescribable?
"Give me your hand," she said, picking up the knife.
"My hand?"
She gestured for him to come forward and he held out his hand, palm up. Without blinking, Gabby dragged the blade across his skin, opening up a long red gash. Hissing at the sudden pain, he curled his hand into a fist. Blood began to drip into the plastic bowl and ironically he thought, no salad then.
Gabby drew the knife across her own palm and together, they let their blood combine in the bowl until both their cuts began to clot.
"Okay, are you ready?" she asked. "I'm going to start the spell now."
"As I'll ever be," he replied with a grimace.
Offering him a reassuring smile, Gabby knelt down and picked up the grimoire and started reading and the air began to tingle around them. He knew that she was speaking the witch language, but to him it sounded alien.
There was no hope of him understanding it.
For a few minutes nothing else happened and he wondered if the spell was working or this was it. It was meant to hurt, so why wasn't it? As soon as the thought ran through his mind, a sharp stabbing pain sliced through his heart.
"Fuck," he cried out, falling to his knees. His chest felt like it was ripping apart, his heart swelling to bursting point and he started to panic. Blood whooshed in his ears and stars began to prickle his vision and it took all he had to hold onto reality.
"Don't fight it, Alex," he vaguely heard Aya say. Of course he was fighting it. He was dying, but that was the point wasn't it? His humanity had to die in order for him to be reborn as a vampire. He had to die.
Clutching his head in his hands, he drew in sharp breaths, each slicing into his lungs like shards of hot metal. As his vision began to blur to black around the edges, he could hear Gabby still speaking the words of the spell over and over, until the strange language was all that he knew. Letting it overwhelm him, he trusted Aya's advice and stopped fighting.
Alex breathed out and he swore he felt the moment his heart stopped beating. There was a second of nothing but oblivion and he thought he could see forever...then there was nothing.
That's the thing about being knocked out, or falling asleep for that matter, because when he finally come to, it always felt like a second had passed. Alex felt all his senses coming back long before his eyesight joined the party. Even before he started breathing again and it was a strange sensation. He fought against the current that was weighing him down, searching for the light.
"How long until he comes back?" he heard Aya say through the fog.
"I'm not sure," Gabby replied. "It could be a minute, it could be an hour. There's no time limit on this."
Fixing on their voices, he willed his eyes to open and when they did, he sat up sharply, gasping for air. As his heart started to beat again, he clutched his chest as the first thud echoed in his ears. How the hell did he even hear that?
"There's your answer," Aya said with a shrug.
"Alex," Gabby knelt forward, a palm on his forehead. "Are you okay?"
"No," he croaked. "That was messed up." He felt like he'd been beaten within an inch of his life, and he could remember a few times he'd been beaten up. The most recent being in the gardens back in Ashburton. It had been one of Katrin's vampires pummeling him and he'd been the bait to lure out his friends. That was also the night he found out about…well, vampires and witches and every other supernatural mumbo jumbo creature that was living within five yards of his house.
"Is that it?" he asked, wiping his brow.
"Not quite." Gabby held out the bowl that contained their blood and nodded. "Drink. It'll complete the change."
He'd forgotten about this part. The bit with the blood. Looking at the contents, he felt like throwing up, but as soon as it swirled around in the green plastic bow, a scent washed over him. Grabbing it from her hands, he drank greedily, like he was parched after a day of hard labor in the gardens.
He felt it slide down into his stomach and the moment it hit, he began to choke as a sharp pain spread through his abdomen. Dropping the bowl, he doubled over, wrapping his arms around himself. They didn't tell him about this part. As the pain spread through his body, it felt like he was ripping apart, burning from the inside out…he'd never felt anything so horrible in his entire life. Better him than Isobel.
Aya suddenly appeared next to him, cradling his head in her lap, her hand stroking through his hair. "It's going to be okay," she crooned. "It'll pass soon."
"Fuck," he gasped as another spasm ripped through his chest. "Is it supposed to feel like this?"
"You're changing," she said. "You're entire body is altering how it works. It's going to hurt until it's done."
"Let the pain take you, Alex," Gabby said. "Let it take you and it'll feel so much better."
He trusted Gabby with his life and letting his fear go, he let the pain wash over him as he made the final transition into a founding vampire. Even as his consciousness stared to fade, he thought about his sister. He had to focus on why he was doing this, why he had sacrificed himself to become the thing he never wanted to be.
Hang on, Izzy, he thought. I'm coming for you.
Alex's eyes opened slowly, darkness to the bright light of the night-time around him. Curling his fingers in the grass on which he laid, he stared up at the sky and wondered why it was so bright.
A thousand, million, trillion stars shone down at him through the canopy of trees above and he found himself wondering if they'd really been there all this time. A slight breeze ruffled the leaves above him and drew his focus a little closer to earth. Sound pulled his attention in every direction and he couldn't decide which to listen to first. The scurrying of some night dwelling creature, the far off sounds of cars and trucks on the highway and a thump-thump sound he couldn't quite place.
After a while, he realized he was hearing a heartbeat. Focusing on the sound, he heard three distinct patterns all intertwined, beating out a complex rhythm. He sat up slowly and squinted as his eyes focused.
"Alex?" He heard a voice call out to him and it was familiar somehow. An image of an olive skinned woman with wild brown hair came to mind and he turned to find her watching him, concern in her hazel eyes. No, hazel wasn't right. Caramel?
"Gabby," he sighed.
Gabby glanced past him, her shoulders sagging in relief and he turned to find another woman beside him. Her eyes were so blue they could be called cold, but he only saw warmth there.
"How do you feel?" Aya asked.
"Overwhelmed." Everything was beating down on him, demanding to be heard, seen, tasted, touched…a high definition assault.
Aya smiled and rose to her feet, holding out a hand to him. "Let me help you."
Grasping her hand, he stood and marveled at how fluid it felt.
"We should go back to Isobel's and prepare," Gabby said.
At the mention of Isobel, Alex felt anger sear through him and the intensity took his breath away. He'd seen Sam and Zac change into their vampire modes on several occasions, but when he felt his teeth start to move, he slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Shit," he hissed, feeling slightly embarrassed.
"Deep breaths," Aya said, holding his shoulders. She understood, of course she understood. She had issues with controlling this kind of thing, didn't she? Alex suddenly understood how she felt. It had happened so easily, so fast…one little mention of his sister's name and his anger almost took him someplace he wasn't sure he ever wanted to go.
As he breathed in the crisp air, he felt everything go back to as it should. His teeth seemed to settle and his vision wasn't quite as sharp.
"Okay?" the hybrid asked and he nodded. "It'll take time, but we're here to help you. Zac can help you with all of this."
"I know."
Aya wound an arm around his back and helped him walk through the forest back to where Tristan was waiting with the car. He looked around, not quite believing what he was seeing. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers along the trunk of a tree, felt the breeze against his face and breathed in the earthy scent that hung all around them. Alex sighed and looked up at the sky again. How had all of this been here and he hadn't noticed it before? All this…life.
Aya looked up at him and smiled, her eyes shining bright with laughter. "You're like a baby seeing the world for the first time."
Smiling back he replied, "That's because I am."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Zac stood with Alex in the lane behind Isobel's apartment, the night slowly giving way to the dawn. He promised he'd help him adjust to his new life and now was the time. It was the only time because Isobel was counting on them.
He'd been through it with Sam, but this time was a whole different game. Alex was vastly different from his little brother. They both had kind hearts, but Alex was innocent. Gabby had told him once that Alex was the underdog at school. He was the one that bullie
s picked on and still he went out of his way to help people after they'd pushed him down. Either that was stupid, or incredibly brave. Right now, Zac would bet his last dollar on the fact that those bullies would be running the other way. Alex was kind of bad ass.
"I don't feel cold," Alex said, his voice full of disbelief.
"That's normal."
"I'm just so…" He shrugged.
"C'mon." Zac pointed to the roof. "Have a go."
"What, just jump?"
"Yeah, just jump. I'd aim, though."
"I don't…"
"Don't worry about looking stupid," Zac said. "There's worse things than missing. Besides, this is the fun part."
Alex looked up at the roof, three stories above, and his jaw tensed.
"Do you want me to go first?" Zac asked with a laugh. "I can catch you."
"No. I've gotta grow a pair."
Zac stood back and watched as Alex stared up at the roof and a moment later he jumped. A crack signaled his arrival on the roof and what sounded like a couple of broken tiles. With a laugh, he jumped and landed beside Alex. "Nice, huh?"
"That's incredible. I had no idea. I mean, I knew you guys were fast, but it's something else doing it."
"We'll go for a run one day. I like to call it the ten second mile."
"That'd fuck the Olympics right up."
"Try passing the drug test."
Alex sat down heavily on the top most part of the roof and Zac perched beside him. For a while they just stared out over the city, keeping their thoughts to themselves. What a fucked up world that it had to come to this to save everyone. Zac had done a lot of stupid shit since moving home, treating Alex like an annoying ant was one of them. He guessed he owed him one hell of an apology.
"I'm sorry, Alex," he said wryly.
"What for? There's a lot of stuff, so you have to be more specific."
He let out a laugh. "Yeah, well all of it. I was an ass to you for no reason. I got you messed up in all of this. I got your sister messed up in it. And now you're a vampire. Can't get any more shitty than that."
"Nope."